


Cosmic Topology

by onereyofstarlight



Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: Gen, Mild Irritation, Reading, pet peeves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-27
Updated: 2020-01-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:27:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22437154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onereyofstarlight/pseuds/onereyofstarlight
Summary: John's reading. No, really, he is.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 21





	Cosmic Topology

John’s favourite thing about London was the anonymity. There was a kind of solitude to be found in the midst of a crowd, no-one looking closely at anyone else and everyone hurrying quickly to unknown destinations. The stream of people never seemed to end, tourists marked by the islands that formed around them as they gaped at the sights and saw everything except the annoyed glares of the people forced to alter their course. The shortest distance between two points was a line but only in Euclidean geometry, and so perhaps the book John took out as he ducked into the small café was of greater interest to London dwellers than they might have otherwise considered.

It had taken many weekends of searching out this place but it had been worth the effort. With its comfortable chairs and perfectly brewed caffé macchiato, John couldn’t think of a place he’d rather spend his afternoons. He nodded to the barista behind the counter as he ordered and quickly nabbed the same corner table he had sat at every day for the last six months. There was a brief opportunity while his coffee was made that people were welcome to talk to him – but they never did. The other customers were creatures of habit and that suited John just fine.

The barista would bring the coffee out to him, and he would smile and accept it gratefully. He wouldn’t drink it all at once, wanting to savour the time before he had to return to the realities of university. He pulled out his book, a popsci non-fiction that had caught his eye in the secondhand book shop with its hideous cover and the intriguing title; _Cosmic Topology_. It was several years too old to be of any real use and John knew that most of what he learnt from this book would be superseded by the time he reached the level in his degree where they would discuss the shape of the universe in such depth. But there was a good balance of light hearted discussion and just enough mathematics within its pages to keep things interesting. Besides, astrophysics was built upon the successes of previous generations and thus John knew that understanding a historical view of any physics topic could only be of use to him in the future.

Distantly, he heard a bell ringing as the door to the café opened, but he paid it no attention, his mind full of derivations and postulates that leapt out of the page at him. Absently, he pulled his tablet towards him, peering at the words at scribbling down notes of his own to refer to at a later date. He was a model for the focused work he thrived on and so it was with some confusion that he heard the chair opposite him being pulled out from its place at his table. The metallic scrape jolted him out of his thoughts and he glared at the new arrival over the top of his book.

“Hello then,” said a cheerful voice. “What’re you reading there?”

John said nothing, merely raising the book higher to grudgingly allow the stranger to read the title.

“Cosmic Topology,” read the stranger slowly. “What on earth is that all about?”

“Off Earth, technically,” muttered John as he turned the page. He looked up at the stranger, noting her curious face, and sighed. “It’s discussing the non-Euclidean geometry of spacetime. With a particular interest into whether or not the universe can be described as flat considering this effect.”

“Of course, it’s not flat!” she exclaimed. “If the universe were flat it would be like a drawing.”

John ignored her and tried to immerse himself back into the chapter. He wasn’t sure quite where he’d left off, or whether he understood what was happening anymore, so he flipped back to the previous page with a deeper frown.

The stranger was still chattering beside him, oblivious to the fact that she’d lost her audience. Her voice seemed to weasel its way into his brain and trip up his thoughts and he glared at the page as another “don’t you think?” forced him to begin the paragraph afresh as he hummed vaguely in agreement.

He could feel his focus slipping further and further with every word she said and abruptly he drained his coffee in a desperate attempt to restore the peace in his world.

“Phew, down the hatch like that?” she commented. “You got somewhere to be?”

John wanted to yell, just a little, right there in the café. Because the simple truth was no, he didn’t, he always spent two o’clock to three thirty in this particular café and he wasn’t about to change that on the whim of someone who wandered into his life ten minutes prior.

“No,” he said through gritted teeth, and instantly regretted it as this somehow sparked an entirely new conversation.

John was reduced to staring blankly at the pages in front of him, the formulae and arguments swirling in his head like sediment that the constant interruptions refused to let settle.

There was a loud sigh from the chair opposite him and against his better judgement he looked up.

“Sorry, what?”

“I said, do you agree?”

“I, uh,” he stuttered, panic blanketing his mind. _What was she talking about?_ he thought. An image of a teenaged Scott flashed through his mind.

_“It doesn’t matter what, John,” Scott said, moodily throwing the tennis ball at the wall. “Women are always right.”_

“Yes?” he said cautiously.

That got the stranger’s attention.

“Excuse me?” she said, looking suddenly indignant. “You _agree_?”

Privately, John thought that perhaps he really didn’t, or maybe he shouldn’t, but he had twenty minutes of lost time rattling inside of him and an opportunity to drive his new attachment away.

“Yes, I do,” he said, looking her straight in the eye.

At this, she stood sharply with an outraged cry and John flinched back as her hand moved fluidly through the air.

On reflection, he was lucky it had been iced coffee she was drinking. The blended slurry had enough mass to showcase her excellent aim and he could see her storming out of the café as he wiped the liquid from his eyes. The smell of coffee was muted but he could already see the stains blooming on his white shirt.

“I’m so sorry,” he gasped at the barista who looked as shocked as he was. “Could I get some napkins?”

He looked mournfully down at his book as they worked together to clean up the mess. It’s pages were already beginning to gum together and he knew he wouldn’t be reading that particular copy for a few weeks. Fortunately, his tablet was waterproof and he smiled wryly as he wiped it down, causing his background to light up, a photo of his family when they had travelled to the Johnson Space Center.

“This is your fault,” he told the grinning image of Scott. “I’m never listening to you again.”

**Author's Note:**

> Crossposted from Tumblr, originally posted on 10/1/20
> 
> Welcome to my biggest pet peeve on the planet this fic is 80% me going "shUT UUUUUPPPPPPPP" to everyone who's ever tried to talk to me when I am reading... I get that a book is a good starting point for a conversation, especially with strangers but also noooooooo get lost!
> 
> Anywho uh... thank you for reading!!


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